What are you Waiting for?
by Spring Zephyr
Summary: Alternate title: Awkwardness. Sugimoto/Imaizumi.


**This is one of the most mature things my innocent little baby mind has ever typed up. You might not believe me, but... Anyway, they literally do nothing but talk. I was going to post this as an "M" until I realized that I am the only person on the planet who thinks the presence of a single word is reason enough to warrant an "M" rating.**

** Zephyr writes when and what Zephyr is asked to write though.** **Even for people who drop a series after ten episodes. And when** **I don't know that Sugimoto/Imaizumi is apparently a thing.**

"Okay. This is it." Maybe if Sugimoto talked enough, he would eventually convince himself that it was actually going to happen. "We are absolutely, absolutely going to do-"

The 'it' was that they would... have sex.

"-Um, do the thing! I-it'll feel good, right? That's what they say in all the, um... movies and stuff."

To be honest, Sugimoto's imagination had made this seem a lot easier. He didn't normally consider himself an unconfident kind of guy, and he did think about such things from time to time. But most of his confidence, now that he thought about it, came from other things – from knowing how to ride a bike or being good at math, and having parents who had raised him well. Take away all of that, and there was, well...

There was a difference between riding a bike and doing... that, and unfortunately none of Sugimoto's cycling experience could be applied to that. Sex, it embarrassed Sugimoto to acknowledge, was unfortunately like most other matters of the universe. It was the kind of thing you had to actually do in order to get good at it. And where his three years of cycling experience were a matter of pride for Sugimoto, he didn't want to spend three years practicing just to get good at... doing things. With Imaizumi.

"Can't be that hard, right?" he laughed nervously. There was something perverse about that statement, but somehow his mind was too frazzled to really catch on to what that was. Maybe he would have to ask Imaizumi later, if Imaizumi even remembered after all the mind-blowing, awesome... whatever. "People have been doing it since, like, the beginning of time, so..."

"Right," Imaizumi interjected. Sugimoto almost let out an audible sigh of relief, but somehow managed to refrain. "It... it probably isn't..."

Sugimoto was still the only one who was babbling though. Whereas his mind was mostly static, rapidly repeating the same worried and fears over and over again, his mouth just seemed to be going on incessantly. The two of them had barely budged an inch in the last twenty minutes, except Sugimoto hadn't managed to stop with the nervous chatter. Imaizumi's soft, murmured responses and frequent side glances hardly counted even if they did make him feel better.

They were a lot less obvious. Somehow, whether or not he was being obvious felt like it counted for everything right now.

It didn't matter how hard he tried to sound convincing and confident and not at all like the inexperienced loser he really was, as long as Imaizumi didn't look convinced. Neither did Sugimoto, and he was the one who talked the most, but, hey- maybe he could get points for trying?

Imaizumi finally ended his quiet streak by blurting, "You've never done this before, have you?" just a little too quickly. But talking fast was apparently what kept him from stuttering, which Sugimoto suddenly felt envious of.

"Ah? N-no way! Never!" he answered on reflexive. If he'd been able to think, he might have worried a little more about whether or not that sounded uncool before he'd said it.

Or yelled it, rather. Not for the first time, he felt glad that his parents weren't home right now.

"Y-you'll be..."

They wouldn't be back until around five, they'd said, and his little brother was at some friend's house. Sugimoto didn't know why he was all of a sudden thinking about his parents and brother right now, because that was the absolute worst idea he'd had all night, ew. And they didn't even know about him and Imaizumi yet either, but they were probably off enjoying a date of their own right now. They were never really clear with these things; they merely left Sugimoto alone to assume.

"Oh. Um. M-me too." Imaizumi sighed, liked he'd been holding his breath in for that one, and immediately went back to staring at Sugimoto's bedspread. But the more important thing was that he'd distracted Sugimoto again, managed to get his mind back on the subject somehow.

Actually, it wasn't really that hard. His mind kept flitting from thought to thought.

"S-so. Let's get started..."

'Let's get started?' Sugimoto mentally repeated, trying to imagine how it must have sounded to Imaizumi when his voice had cracked. The only way to end the flitting and the nervousness was to just do it already, right?

But he'd meant to watch for Imaizumi's reaction, and he'd sort of forgotten to do that as he spoke- the posters on his bedroom walls were suddenly interesting again, definitely more so than Sugimoto remembered them being about twenty minutes ago. Watching the time change on the digital clock by his nightstand was kind of neat too. Except it felt like forever since the last time they'd changed and it kept reminding him that they'd gotten essentially nowhere.

This whole situation had started when Imaizumi had stammered about how he might like to try doing... _things_... with him some time. Then Sugimoto had turned red-faced and mumbled something about wanting to try things with Imaizumi too.

And now they were in this position.

Maybe he should have painted the walls of his room last week or something, when his father had asked if he felt like changing the color yet. Then he could spend some time pointing out the marvelous new color of his walls instead, since that old shade of blue was starting to get a little dull.

...So now that he'd reminded himself of how they'd gotten here again...

"I-I'm going to, um... start. Then. Let me just..."

Maybe... start by taking off his shirt? He looked down at his hands, which had been nervously fiddling with the hem of his shirt for a while now. Sure, they'd been _fiddling_, but that didn't mean he'd actually worked up the courage to take it off yet! The idea that Imaizumi was supposed to touch him there when he did was exciting, but somehow it was also a lot more frightening.

They hadn't really talked about this before. He didn't know what to do. Until today, he hadn't even known that Imaizumi had thought about him that way- Sugimoto had assumed that it might have just been him.

When he realized that Imaizumi's lips were pressing about half an inch away from the corner of his mouth, it came as such a shock to Sugimoto that he wondered if he'd somehow failed to notice at first. Then his brain made the mistake of not thinking and Sugimoto, for some reason, turned his head away. It broke up whatever momentum they had actually gained from Imaizumi trying to kiss him with stupid, inexperienced reflex.

But. Okay. He didn't have time to feel upset about that now, because that had at least made one thing easier- it forced Sugimoto to remember that they didn't have to start off by stripping. They'd held hands, hugged, kissed, plenty of times. It would have been easy enough to start from there, wouldn't it?

Except he'd never done any of those things with Imaizumi before, knowing and not just imagining that there could be something else waiting at the end of it.

Sugimoto forced himself to stop fiddling and let go of his shirt, the same way he'd eventually forced himself to let go of training wheels when he and his dad had learned how to bike ride together. Then his dad had bought him a book, and he'd studied that to get better. He didn't own a book about having sex. But if he did everything in baby steps, maybe ask his dad for advi- no. No! There was no way he was doing that!

Pushing that thought from his mind, his mouth somehow found Imaizumi's again. As soon as the kiss began, it occurred to him it was somehow stiffer and more tight-lipped than usual. Not that Imaizumi was actually a bad kisser, but...

But...?

Imaizumi had never missed his mouth before, for starters. It was sort of surprising, since he'd always thought of Imaizumi as the sort of person who had probably kissed lots of other people, but it was also true.

"...Seems like you have better aim than me..." Imaizumi mumbled after they'd pulled away, red-faced and trying to hide it from Sugimoto's gaze and outright confirming what Sugimoto had suspected.

So Imaizumi wasn't perfect at some things after all... So what?

Sugimoto was halfway through protesting anyway when Imaizumi shut him up by going in for another kiss. This time he didn't miss, and somewhere between the shaky exhaling and the happy fuzz in his mind from a kiss that actually felt good, something that hadn't happened for quite a while now, there was something that left Sugimoto thinking there might be some hope for them after all.

Then the kiss ended, and he realized that he was still sitting cross-legged on his bed, still keeping his hands to himself, still tense and nervous and not really reacting the way he thought he should have been, as someone who was supposedly about to lose his virginity. And the best-worst part was that Imaizumi looked almost the same as he felt.

More than a minute of silence passed before either of them spoke again. Sugimoto had gone back to staring at his clock sometime during, and thus was how he knew for certain.

"...Want to watch reruns of the Tour de France again instead?"

"Y-yeah."

**Sugimoto was so cute during the training camp, bringing Tour de France DVDs to watch with his roomies and then being the only first year in attendance to fail.**


End file.
